Article · 6 min read

Three Red Flags to Watch Out for in an Incubator

Tilda Yeow · Anthill Magazine Free Beginner

This one names the predatory pattern precisely: a program whose real business is charging you thousands to build your website with its in-house dev team, while it also holds equity, a straight conflict of interest. It documents founders locked into binding contracts paying over 100,000 dollars, and its core instruction backs our answer: interview past participants (it says roughly 80 percent of them), not just the two the program hand-picks for you.

  • A program that upsells its own paid in-house services (website, dev) while holding your equity has a built-in conflict of interest
  • Advisors with no discernible track record of working with startups mean the mentorship value proposition is hollow
  • Talk to a wide slice of past participants yourself, not the curated references the program offers
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The question it answers

  1. How do I tell a genuinely good incubator or accelerator from one that just takes equity and gives nothing?

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